


Variations on a Theme

by lategoodbye



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: M/M, No Plot/Plotless
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-28
Updated: 2014-06-28
Packaged: 2018-02-06 14:06:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1860798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lategoodbye/pseuds/lategoodbye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Tell you what,” Jakes teased. “This time, you get to watch.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Variations on a Theme

**Author's Note:**

> A huge thank you goes out to the usual suspects, Beth and Rose, for being the best of betas.

He was undoing the buttons of his shirt. It was a sight that Morse never tired of. He wouldn't have admitted to it, of course, and had he voiced his thought out loud, he doubted that Jakes would have taken kindly to it. It was something they didn't talk about. Why would they? It was apparent enough in the way their bodies moved against each other, in the way fingers dug eagerly into soft skin, and the way Morse's growing need, echoed in the almost painful throb of his pulse against his shirt collar and tie, made one thing unmistakably clear: he wanted this; let his remorse catch up with him once they were done. 

His first instinct was to bridge the remainder of distance between them, his next to switch off the lights. He liked his adventures to be shrouded in mystery, another series of clues to become unravelled under his watchful gaze. He also liked how the sudden veil of darkness, accentuated only by the street lamps below his windows, created layer upon layer of shadows across Jakes' bare chest and the soft slope of his shoulders. He could barely make out how his hands dipped low to unzip his fly and shake off his trousers.

Morse sighed.

“Let me ...” he said, and his own hand traced the outline of the other man's erection through the thin cotton of his boxers. 

It surprised and displeased him when Jakes didn't immediately oblige and instead freed himself from their lingering embrace. 

“Not this time, Morse.”

“What, but you've just ...”

He could see it; the darkness of the room was incomplete, and like a promise that remained unfulfilled, Jakes' arousal strained upward, its thickened shape conjuring up the memory of many nights spent together. They seldom deviated from what they had found out soon into their affair satisfied their hunger for quick release. It was true, they had become better at this, and no longer were quite as incompatible, quite as ruthless. Rough-skinned hands and dry lips hadn't turned gentle, and there often was a selfishness in the way they touched, but they had grown accustomed to each other's desires. Morse needed to feel; Jakes needed to look. It was when Morse lost himself underneath him that he seemed most at ease.

But this time Jakes shook his head. Morse followed his movements, deliberate and slow, as he sank into the armchair that was facing the bed. When he spread his legs Morse swallowed, hard. His mouth had run dry. The tension, low in his stomach, had suddenly grown uncomfortable.

“Tell you what,” Jakes teased. “This time, you get to watch.” His right hand curled around his length, and carefully, reluctant at first, he began to stroke himself.

Morse couldn't help it, he felt himself flush, and he was glad that the remnants of the warm light that fell through the windows hid most of his embarrassment. He cast his eyes downward, and hunched his shoulders. His arms hung uselessly by his sides. He felt his fingernails dig painfully into the sensitive skin of his sweaty palms as he balled his hands into tightly clenched fists. 

“You can't just ...” he began and Jakes answered him with a breathless moan. He had to look up then, had to admire the curve of Jakes' exposed neck as he sat, with his head resting against the back of his chair, his hand moving rhythmically, relentlessly. Seductively.

Morse turned away. The tingle of excitement and of exquisite shame made him shiver. He had completely abandoned his own attempts at undressing, and his vest hung loosely over the waistband of his trousers. 

Jakes moaned again, and the melody of it held something of the sarcasm that Morse was so frustratingly familiar with. He turned toward that sound, and found the rapid rise and fall of Jakes' chest to be contagious. Breathless himself, he slumped down onto the bed but that only increased the tightness in his groin. There was soft laughter from where Jakes sat splayed on his chair but as Morse, still unsure of what to do, rose back to his feet at once, it caught somewhere low in his throat. He bucked his hips then, and soon his other hand joined in on the rhythm of his caress, lazy and slow, it gripped his length where pale skin was half hidden beneath a shadow of dark hair. 

The mesmerising sight was about as much as Morse could stand. Flustered and bewildered still, he felt another purpose awaken within him. Jakes had rendered him speechless, yes, and although the eroticism of his little act appealed to him deeply, it was accompanied by an overwhelming sense of immobilising guilt. Morse was well secure in the things he liked but he found that he could rarely ask for them directly, for fear of seeming crude or, worse even, thoughtless. It had never occurred to him before to indulge in voyeurism. He didn't much understand the appeal. It maddened him to have been reduced to a passive catalyst of Jakes' fantasies. He needed to be more than just an impotent recipient, or else he ran the risk of his thoughts catching up with him. 

And anyway, Jakes had had his fun – was still having it, by the looks, and tantalising sounds of it, but Morse was done indulging him. The half-light made it difficult to circumvent the clutter of shoes and clothes on the floor. One of his bare feet entangled itself in what felt like the folds of a smooth and starched shirt. He almost tripped and lost his balance before he finally managed to catch himself on both arm rests of Jakes' chair.

“Had enough already?” he breathed as Morse leant in low until he felt the other man exhale against his slightly parted lips. They didn't kiss, and for a moment, time seemed frozen all around them.

“Go on then,” and before Morse could protest that he wasn't about to wait around obediently until he was granted permission, Jakes interrupted the gentle rhythm of his hands to pull him down, on top of him, until their lips met in a slightly lopsided kiss and Morse could feel the hardness of Jakes' arousal against the inside of his thigh. 

They wasted no more time on pleasantries then. They never did when the promise of release loomed close nearby. Morse's vest fell to the floor in one fluid motion, where it was soon joined by his trousers, although it took some inelegant manoeuvring to take them off. 

It wasn't terribly comfortable, the way he decided to straddle Jakes. There were a precarious couple of seconds when they both stopped in their tracks as the armchair wobbled and creaked under their combined weight, then Jakes' hand pushed between them and took a hold of them both. A quiet hiss of pleasure escaped Morse, and he immediately sought to drown out the vulnerable sound in a forceful kiss that soon trailed deeper, down the hollow of Jakes' neck to where collarbone was met by a trickle of chest hair. An experimental roll of his hips was rewarded with a drawn out shiver, and Morse pushed again. And again, mindless of the painful dig of Jakes' fingers into the angled curve of his hips, or the way his own hands had found purchase against the other man's chest and shoulder. 

Jakes came first, he didn't usually. When his tremors had subsided Morse felt his gaze on him, inquisitive and strangely expectant as he took up the rhythm again, slower than before. Another roll of his hips was all it took until Morse slumped against him, sated and spent.

“What was that all about?” he asked, the sound of his breathless voice muffled from where his lips brushed against the side of Jakes' jaw. 

But Jakes just smiled, he could feel it in the way his body shifted against him. It was an answer as good as any other; something else they didn't talk about.


End file.
